A computing apparatus or device may be equipped with a means to authenticate a user for access. However, there may be applications or functions (herein referred to as apps) on the device that a user would access or use often but not wanting the need for device-level authentication every time he wishes to do so. On the other hand, some apps may provide their own authentication (optional or otherwise), so that a user may disable authentication for the device, and rely on such app-specific authentication. In this case, the user needs to be authenticated individually by these apps, and manage the credentials (e.g., user name and password) for all these apps. In addition, when a device communicatively coupled to a user lacks network connectivity, the user who is using the same online service as another user would not be able to access the service, even though a device of the other user has network connectivity to communicate with the service and the device of the user is communicatively linked to the device of the other user.